


Lovely

by IdiotCrusader



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Asphyxiation, Blood and Gore, Consensual But Not Safe Or Sane, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dirty Talk, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Medical Inaccuracies, Monster Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Murder Husbands, Painplay, R76: Monsterfuckers Before Venom, Self-Hatred, Slasher Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison, Tentacles, Wetting Briefly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2019-08-07 11:20:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16407518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IdiotCrusader/pseuds/IdiotCrusader
Summary: Jack kills people for the thrill and has some serious issues, including, but not limited to, a hero complex, Reaper is a tentacle monster, and they find each other hot.Halloween special with spicy violence flavour! Chapter 1 contains your sweet, sweet monster romance (with murder, of course), and most of the warnings and E rating go with Chapter 2 onwards.





	1. won't you stay alive

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY BUT HEAR ME OUT  
> I know, I know, you're gonna say I should really be working on Be The Hero, but slasher 76 is just too good to miss. So here it is. Happy (upcoming) Halloween, have some majorly questionable ethically monster-fuckery! Someone pointed out to me when I already had the title and part 1 done that Twenty One Pilots - Lovely fits really well with it. And it's great. Go check it out.  
> Reaper was never a part of Overwatch in this one. Jack used to lead it alone. 
> 
> Part one is pretty non-graphic unless you're bothered by murder and Reaper eating a dead body. All the nasty (or good, depends) stuff comes in the second part. Mind the warnings and let me know if you want something else tagged, but otherwise, enjoy it and let me know what you think!

The body drops on the ground with a wet thud.  
  
It's gross. More of a blood-reeking, messy gore mash than anything resembling a human. Chainsaw kills tend to get a little... dirty.  
  
Jack gives the body an uninterested nudge with his armoured boot tip. He's impatient, waiting there cross-armed at the old castle ruins in the middle of nowhere like an idiot. It's cold, and blood starts caking uncomfortably on his shirt and hands. What the hell.  
  
It takes a minute or two of fidgeting and general displeasure before the darkness down the ruins starts to shift.  
  
Jack watches in hungry attention, mesmerized by the display as if for the first time. The mist around the deep well, half-covered by rubble, clogs and clots like drying blood, slowly taking a shape. Jack knows that well and knows what resides deep down there - he's almost broken his neck by falling into it the first time he came here.  
  
And that's how he came to know _Reaper_.  
  
Reaper is... god fucking knows what he is. For all Jack knows, he doesn't give a damn. They have a bargain, it works great, so why would he care?  
  
Why should he care there's a monstrous flesh-hungry entity feeling at home a few miles away from the city, right? Jack feeds him, Reaper gets rid of the bodies that way and does some... extra things for Jack. It's all good fun.  
  
"What a _pleasant_ _surprise_. Dinner to bed?" Reaper purrs.  
  
His voice makes Jack huff to hide the bone-deep shudder. It's not because he's afraid - not at all.  
  
Reaper insists on wearing his human-like disguise around him most of the time, though Jack cannot comprehend why. He knows Reaper's a... whatever the hell he is, but definitely not human. Reaper knows Jack knows. Yet he still makes a point of wearing this body and face.  
  
If Jack didn't know better he'd think the bastard is pretty fond of it.  
  
The body is not half-bad, either. Reaper makes it look as if he really was just out of bed, shoulder-long curls slightly messy, a few careless touches to his outfit - a cloak, as of he wasn't already extra as a whole - here and there, a relaxed posture and a soft, crooked smile revealing a glimpse of the _teeth_ , white and sharp. The only thing not quite human about this appearance, but it suits him.  
  
Jack used to be pretty handsome, too, back in the good days, golden boy and all, but Reaper's fake body is something else entirely, all dark skin and pleasant curves and charming smirks. Jack can't help but stare, licking his lips. He suddenly feels hot in a chilly night out in the open.  
  
Reaper knows, of course. He's a smartass. Apparently, monsters can know these things and be smartass about it.  
  
"Would you look at that. What a mess." Reaper chuckles, inspecting the corpse. He's so casual about it. Not even Jack is that indifferent to the fact that thing was living and _someone_ a few hours ago.  
  
But then again, he's the one who killed his someone and felt good about it...  
  
Jack tries not to think about it too often. Instead, he snaps, annoyed:  
  
"You want it or not?"  
  
That earns him another deep purr.  
  
"Of course I do. Couldn't let your efforts go to waste." He takes a knee, sliding his gloved hand down one of the gaping wounds on the remains of the body. "Third one this week, isn't it? If you keep going at this pace not even my appetite would be able to keep up with your... increasing _taste_ for violence."  
  
It's a clear provocation, and Jack knows he's being mocked, but he falls into it anyway.  
  
"That's rich, coming from you," he snarls. "I'm not taking lectures about moral standards from someone who's lost any humanity fucking ages ago!"  
  
Jack doesn't even know whether Reaper was human at _any_ point, ever, there's no way to tell - he's just heard that things... creatures... like him were people once, too. Hard to guess now, looking at the twisted beyond any repair atrocity Reaper became now.  
  
Sometimes Jack wonders whether these rumours are a lie or not.  
  
Reaper laughs, hearty and sincere.  
  
"Perhaps you’re right. Did I even possess it in the first place?”  
  
He never really talks about his past or what he is, and Jack never asks, even though sometimes he feels like finding out. It’s some morbid curiosity, wanting to know what a human being can turn itself into. Whether it’s possible to go so far down the corruption road you become… that. Jack’s future is looking pretty grim right now. Maybe he just wants to know how much he can fuck _himself_ up before it shows.  
  
Jack hates thinking about what he’s done to himself. He’s only really fooling himself, maybe not even that lately, but Reaper is happy to play along. He is awfully pleasant for a monster.  
  
“Well…” Reaper swipes clotting blood and gory mash onto his fingers and brings his hand up to his mouth - Jack barely catches a glimpse of a long, inhuman tongue sliding between his lips to taste it. And if his face heats up slightly at the sight, the mask covers it well. “I suppose you’re tired from your hunt. Cranky, aren’t you?”

Jack lets out a growl, gripping his chainsaw-fitted rifle tighter, but Reaper merely laughs again before looking down at the corpse. His expression is different. Hungry. His skin crawls, muscle and bone literally shifting below it - Jack already knows Reaper struggles to look human when he’s craving flesh. It’s gross. Unnatural. Jack knows he should be repulsed - instead, his stomach tightens with morbid _desire_.

“Let me finish with this first, and then I will take care of you.” Reaper smiles, a too-wide, too many teeth-grin splitting his handsome face in two like a knife slice. “I would offer you to look away while I eat, but it’s not necessary, is it?”

It isn’t. There’s no need to look away.  
  
Jack has grown to love watching him do it.

* * *

Reaper's true form is something out of a Lovecraftian nightmare, a distorted, ever-changing mass of darkness and shapes. He's huge like that. Protrusions and tendrils swell under the surface like tumours to disappear next minute and resurface the next after that. He doesn't have a face, per se, but Jack manages to catch a glimpse of the eyes - a lot of entirely wrong looking eyes in entirely wrong places - and teeth. Oh god, the teeth.  
  
Reaper is easily the most disgusting thing to exist under the sky, and Jack fucking _loves_ it.  
  
Hey, at least, unlike Jack, Reaper has the appearance to match his monstrous mind.  
  
The surface... the skin, whatever... is slightly cool, and it brings Jack and his ever-boiling fever some relief upon touching. They came to have a ritual, of sorts. Jack would bring the body, Reaper would take care of it, and then he'd let Jack rest with him.  
  
Tucked in between the twitching, crawling tendrils, engulfed by the pleasantly cool fluid slash tissue, on his back with his mask off, Jack feels safer than ever.  
  
He's dozing off, on the brink of consciousness from exhaustion. Pushing himself to the very limit is something from the previous life, before the chainsaw, before the Soldier, before everything. Too tired to fall asleep, Jack stares into the dark sky - they're curled on the bottom of the well, it smells like rock, salt and fresh water, and Jack can see the stars flicker in the circle - well opening - above his head.  
  
He's startled out of it by a single, very tangible tendril poking at the collar of his shirt. Well... what's left of his shirt. Jack doesn't care much for keeping himself clean and tidy anymore.  
  
"...the hell are you doing?" It's not even a protest, just a vague surprise.  
  
"Touching." Reaper chuckles softly - the sound comes from the depth of his shapeless body, as if from the very core. "Why?"  
  
"Are we at the tentacle porn stage yet?" Jack mumbles. It's hard to retort properly when he struggles to keep his eyes open. "I'm not into that, fuck off. I'm too tired."  
  
The tendril doesn't fuck off. It slips under his shirt, sliding down his chest. Jack sighs at how pleasant the cool, gentle touch feels.  
  
"Relax. I just want to explore a little." The tendril caresses his collarbones, passes down the ribs to his stomach, poking it slightly to Jack's dismay, and Reaper hums in content. " _Soft_... It's not often I can see a human up close."  
  
He's so full of bullshit. Jack wants to call him out.  
  
"You _eat_ them," Jack huffs. "You fucking eat people."  
  
Reaper sounds amused, not angry. Somehow he's never mad at Jack.  
  
"Yes, I do. But dead bodies are neither fun or willing to let me up close, are they?"  
  
Willing.  
  
Is Jack willing?  
  
God, this is fucked up. What's even _more_ fucked up is that he doesn't even care anymore.  
  
"Fine. Just don't... make too much fuss about it." Jack verdicts stubbornly. "I'm trying to fall asleep."  
  
"As you wish."  
  
After that, they both go quiet, except for the tendrils shuffling around. Jack simply lays there, trying to focus on how tired he is and how much he needs sleep, and how much he definitely doesn't want to pay attention to light yet precise and insistent caress.  
  
"Your skin is so hot," Reaper notices after a while.  
  
There's no point pretending to be asleep - Jack knows Reaper can tell.  
  
"I might be sick. Who cares." Jack knows his leg he keeps putting nails into as a twisted form of punishment will probably rot off one day. It might be rotting off right now. Maybe that's why he's feverish _all the damn time_.  
  
The touch is almost hypnotic, and Jack can’t even tell whether he genuinely likes it or it’s just because he's gone without any for months. Years, maybe. Time is a hard concept to grasp when your whole life is a cycle of blood and fighting and rest that feels like passing out each time. Jack can barely tell what he was doing yesterday, let alone how long he’s been doing… this for. But he’s rather definite most people who touched him during his murderous escapades were trying to slice him up before he’s done the same to them.  
  
Is this why it feels so damn good now?  
  
Humans crave the touch of other human beings. Jack is lonely, always on the run and on guard as he is, and Reaper is… not exactly human, no, far from it - but he’s so _gentle_ about it. You would think Jack would enjoy rough, but this is somehow even better.  
  
Jack’s hyperfocused on the tendrils brushing down his sides, stroking around lightly in a non-imposing, almost innocent way. A sudden pang of pain startles him: one of the tendrils slides under his belt, and Jack tenses, but it doesn’t go where he would expect, curling on his leg instead. The one he sticks nails in. Jack lets out a surprised gasp as the tendril pokes around the wounds and inflamed flesh, tugging onto one of the nails with no real force, but doesn’t resist, letting Reaper play around.  
  
The whole _point_ of the nails is to hurt him.  
  
“I could heal you, you know,” Reaper hums, the tendril never leaving the torn skin alone. “Just say a word, Jackie. I can fix you here and now.”  
  
Jack tries to remember when he’s started doing it to himself and can’t. Crippling himself is not the best idea in a fight, but he rarely takes on targets that can fight back anymore… and pain keeps him focused. It keeps him _sane_. What’s a little limp and a small chance to die of blood poisoning, if it makes him a _better person_?  
  
Being a better person is important. Jack holds this thought very dear.  
  
It’s a nice reminder of his better days.  
  
“Can’t fix what’s inside my head,” Jack rasps, feeling his throat constrict and at the sudden onslaught of feelings he cannot quite identify. “What’s the point?”  
  
Reaper knows it’s not meant to be a joke. He doesn’t laugh.  
  
A few moments pass in silence. The tendrils are back to the stroking, leaving the small proof of how messed up he is alone for now, and Jack closes his eyes, turns his head to the side and presses his cheek into the cool rubbery skin, listening to Reaper’s heartbeat. He knows it’s fake. Reaper can fake anything, heartbeat, breathing, whatever the hell he wants, otherwise his human body would look even creepier and so unnatural it wouldn’t fool anyone… he just rarely bothers with it in his true form.  
  
The slow, deep thuds of his fake heart beating are so calming.  
  
Jack wonders if Reaper does it to calm him down. If he is, it’s working.  
  
He wonders _why_.

“Why didn't you kill me?”  
  
Jack is almost surprised with himself. So much for telling himself he doesn’t care about the answers. But this is different: not curiosity… something more personal.  
  
As he thought, he’s lonely. Reaper is the only living - arguable - thing in the world that doesn’t want him locked up for good or dead. He needs to know why.  
  
“You know… Back then. When I fell into your goddamn well. You could kill me easily but didn’t. I wanna know.” Reaper doesn’t have a face, per se, to read expressions off, but Jack still keeps his eyes tightly shut while waiting for an answer.

“Hmmm.” Reaper doesn’t hesitate too much. “I get bored, you see. I’m too powerful and old to care much for hunting alone anymore, and the dreams your mind can come up with while you’re asleep on the bottom of the well can only entertain for so long. And then here you come, like Alice into the Wonderland.” 

If you think about it, Reaper makes a great Cheshire Cat.  
  
It’s just Jack. Jack is a little too off the rails, too _mad_ to be a good Alice.  
  
“Yes. But why me?” Jack presses, stubbornly. “People come here, prowl about. Someone else would’ve fallen into here sooner or later. Why not that somebody else?”  
  
One of the tendrils finds Jack’s face, touching his lips for a short moment in a parody of a lover’s caress that makes him give a full-body shiver.  
  
“Maybe I just like you, Jackie. Why would I kill a _lovely_ human such as yourself?”

Reaper loves pet names. Jack can deal with being called Jackie and whatever the hell amuses him the most, it doesn’t really matter - but he’s never come up with this one before. For some reason, it makes Jack uncomfortably shift, squeezing his eyes closed even tighter. What a thing to say to a murderer like Jack. What even makes the bastard say that?! Jack presses his cheek down onto the mass of tentacles, his face slightly hotter than it should be - it’s just fever, or is it? - and if he didn’t know better, he’d say he’s flustered.  
  
_Lovely_.  
  
It doesn’t fucking suit him at all.  
  
But then Reaper’s a monster. Fucked up Jack to suit his fucked up tastes.  
  
“You barely know me.”  
  
Reaper, that asshole, always has an answer ready.

“Well then. Tell me more.”

Jack pauses, considering. Does he really want to tell an ancient abomination anything about himself? It probably doesn’t make much difference, Jack suspects Reaper could read off his mind if he really bothered. And then, what would Reaper do anyway? Call the cops? Jack goes out to hunt civilians for him, for god’s sake. Not much he can tell to make it worse.  
  
Fucking ridiculous.  
  
If Reaper wants to know, well… They seem to have a _thing_ going on between them, and Jack doesn’t mind being polite and fulfilling the request. Plus a bonus benefit of taking Jack’s mind off that unwelcome feeling of frustration… _embarrassment…_ at being called ‘lovely’. Anything to avoid thinking about this one - Jack doesn’t even want to start analyzing why it threw him off so much.  
  
Storytime that is, then.  
  
Jack’s understanding of his own past is… somewhat fragmented. It’s not about his memory, Jack can remember things just fine, but putting the patches together into a plausible story seems much trickier. Jack readily recalls bits and pieces: the flags, the statue, the speeches… Overwatch, streets of Dorado, SEP wards all come up in flashes, slightly blurred by time, but still real as ever. It’s all happened to him, he’s certain - just lots of time ago, and the order is hard to grasp. Cornfields of Indiana. The scorching-hot sun and explosions. The smell of meds and guns and machine oil.

Being in charge. Being someone that mattered. Being called a _hero_. The Omnic Crysis. 

Funnily enough, he never kills omnics nowadays. Humans give far too many reasons to put them up the target priority list.  
  
It’s not because the blood and the mess that only a dying human being composed of flesh and bone can make get Jack going. It’s - just not that, okay?!  
  
Anyways… Jack is pretty sure he was a war hero once, Strike-Commander Morrison later, Soldier 76 sometime after that - and here is where the lines start to blur. Is he Soldier now? Jack doesn’t know. He certainly doesn’t go by that name anymore, even his coat is new. But then the general agenda stayed about the same. Find the bad guys, fuck them up. Job well done, rinse and repeat till he’s out of bullets or the cops start a fuss.  
  
Then move on, sort it out and do it all again.  
  
Sounds about right. That’s what Soldier used to do - except a nuance or two. Soldier was maybe a little pickier with his victi--targets, Jack much prefers this one, it sounds professional. He’s not doing it all for fun, gotta keep it off personal. Soldier had maybe a slightly narrower definition of a _bad guy_ , and Jack tends to wing it more often than not.  
  
Aren’t so many good people out there anyway. Kinda hard to make a mistake.  
  
Technically, Jack is still a vigilante. Still fighting for peace or… whatever, he doesn’t need to really think about it to know he’s doing the right thing. Well, terrible things, but for entirely justified reasons. And so what if it feels a bit too satisfying when he’s on it?  
  
No. _Wrong_. Bad thinking. Jack is not allowed to enjoy the wild rides to the violence kingdom, that’s not what a hero would feel. But a slip once in a while - he can almost get it right most of the time, and he’s still human, humans make mistakes. He’s… fine.  
  
Jack tells Reaper about all of it, tracking the flicking stars above with unfocused gaze.  
  
“I think I was a hero once…” Jack thinks of that one time he’s found a poster of himself on the wall in a dirty side-alley. The picture was pale and weathered, barely holding together, but still pretty recognisable. Jack took it with him back then, careful not to destroy it, and spend a good half an hour comparing the scarred mess under the mask to the face on the poster. It’s been… distressing for the reasons he didn’t want to know. “I might still be. Not sure.”  
  
This time, Reaper doesn’t answer straight away. Contemplating, he purrs lowly, his tendrils stroking around Jack’s tensing throat. A soft, vulnerable spot.  
  
That feels good, too.  
  
“I’m _sure_ you are, Jackie.”  
  
“You better not be fucking laughing right now,” Jack grumbles, sinking deeper into the tentacle nest, suddenly realizing how dumb and naive it must have sounded. “It’s my whole bloody life. Don’t you dare.”  
  
Don’t you _dare_ to tell me the truth I already know, a small voice in the back of his head mocks, but Jack’s an expert when it comes to ignoring the voice of reason nowadays.  
  
“Why would I be laughing?” A shrug is evident in Reaper’s tone, and Jack relaxes slightly. “Plus, didn’t you say that my moral standards aren’t human anyway? I’m free to believe what I want. Might as well believe you.”  
  
Jack’s own response is cut off short. One of the tendrils, a thicker, moister one, drags across his chest in a leisure stroke that makes Jack flinch, surprised, and glance down. It definitely feels like he’s being licked clean. The fluidy ‘tongue’ leaves no trail, it just laps at the caked blood at his skin, and Jack shivers slightly when it shifts down his neck under his shirt to his sensitive sides and lower stomach, dangerously close to his belt.  
  
There’s no blood to clean there, goddammit, but questioning would make it even weirder.  
  
“Whatever…” Jack forces himself to appear indifferent and find a more comfortable pose. Relax. Keep it casual. Sooner or later Reaper’s gonna get tired of his nonsense. “What…” The tendril brushes across a ticklish spot, and Jack can’t suppress a chuckle and another quiver. “What about you, then? Wanna return the favour and tell me what you are?”  
  
There are so many answers to that one. Jack wonders whether Reaper was a human being once after all, or if he ever had an actual name, or what exactly his nature is.  
  
He gets none of the answers because Reaper’s an unfair-playing smartass.  
  
“Maybe another time, when I’m in the mood.” Reaper sounds far too nonchalant. It’s outrageous, considering how Jack has to fight the urge to squirm under the insistent attention. “I am not the star of this show. _You_ are.”  
  
Just to stress a point, another lick traces a scar running down Jack’s side - it’s still tender, and Jack huffs with fake indignation, feeling warmth creep up his face under the mask. The bastard’s got to be doing this on purpose.    
  
Of _course_ he fucking is.

“Now, do you still fancy the rest you wanted so much, or should I take care of you as I promised?” Reaper suggests, his voice intimately low, dropped by an octave or two.  
  
Somehow, sleep seems far less appealing.


	2. i'll take you on a ride

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alright, guys, I know I wanted to finish it off in the second chapter but I guess writer's block got in the way. Guess I'll just leave this bit here now, and we'll see how it goes from there. 
> 
> The following chapter contains a gross and outrageously medically inaccurate injury description. Fun times!

Sometime later, one of Jack’s hunts goes badly. Full clusterfuck mode, start to finish. Jack’s not exactly surprised: it had to happen sooner or later, so it does. He’s no stranger to being shot and cut and stabbed, his victims are not always defenceless. It’s even better this way, throwing in the risk, raising the stakes.  
  
Except ‘badly’ means ‘really fucking badly’ this time, and being shot in the stomach point-blank is a whole new world of suffering. It’s ridiculous how he’s still alive and staying upright. Jack wants to scream. Jack wants to pass out.  
  
He doesn’t.  
  
He does the only thing he knows - stumbles out of the victim’s house, using his rifle as leverage, and gets the hell out of there. He might have killed the target before leaving, he might have blown his fucking brains out to return the favour, he might have tried to stop the bleeding, he might have run - Jack doesn’t remember any of it.  
  
Walking takes too much effort to think.  
  
Pain is unbearable, scorching hot and impossible to ignore - it’s like his guts are being turned inside out. Jack would rather be dead by now just to make it stop, please make it stop, but his supersoldier - he used to be a supersoldier, right? - body has other plans. It fights with fervency, sending every last drop of strength remaining into overdrive. Whatever remained in him of SEP so desperate to save him, and Jack is not even worth it.  
  
But he was a supersoldier, after all. Maybe that’s how his body puts up with the nails in his leg and the exhaustion and the constant fever. It can endure a lot, maybe a little too much - too bad his mind keeps lagging behind.  
  
Hurts. _Hurts_. God, it hurts.  
  
Every step is a white-hot agony, but something doesn’t let Jack stop here and there. An invisible force, a deep-rooted determination that is not even conscious, drags him away from the town onto the hidden shortcut to the ruins. Jack’s been so many times he could follow the path with his eyes cut out, and the habit serves him well. It drives him to the only place where he can be safe.  
  
To the Reaper’s well.  
  
He can hardly tell whether it’s far away or really close. The world is spinning around him, dark circles constrict his vision with each painful pant he takes, and Jack keeps dropping his unfocused gaze down to the bottom of his blood-soaked shirt and pants and thorn coat. The wound almost looks neat like this, just a piercing point of the bullet entry beneath his ribs and a circle of heavy reddened fabric around it. Who would have thought something this deadly would look this unpretentious...  
  
He should be dead. Why can’t he just be _dead_?!  
  
Does he even deserve it? The answer is probably yes. The answer is, he’s taken so many lives lately in the ways no one should deserve to die, and it would only be fair if he gets the taste of his own medicine, defenceless and alone, in pain that has him out of all people on the brink of tears. He deserves it - but Jack had a good reason to kill all those people.  
  
He’s a hero.  
  
He’s a _soldier_.  
  
There are so many more right things Jack can do.  
  
Jack doesn’t want to die now.  
  
His mask is lost, and his real face is exposed - and it somehow makes him feel excruciatingly helpless. He hates himself, yes, but this is different, and--

A stone catches under Jack’s boot, and his rifle, the only thing keeping his balance upright, slips out of his grip. Jack falls onto his knees, hitting the ground hard and clutching his middle, and violently retches clots of blood and bile, letting out a howl of agony between the heaves. He can see the circle of the well right in front of him, obscured by his darkening vision - but it’s still out of reach.  
  
Just a few steps Jack cannot make, after this whole torture of a journey…  
  
The anguish this thought causes is somehow even worse than the pain.  
  
Jack doesn’t want to die _alone_.  
  
There’s no strength left for the final push. Jack sits there, his mask gone, blood and saliva trickling down his chin, his loyal rifle a few steps away, with a piece of goddamn lead in his stomach, and feels… betrayed. If feels so foreign, after years of being on his own when there was no one to feel that about, he barely recognises the feeling.  
  
The darkness at the edges of his vision starts creeping in slowly, and Jack just sits there, waiting for it to consume him before it purrs in a familiar baritone:  
  
“Well, isn’t it a pleasure to have my favourite human back.”  
  
Jack could cry from utter relief that Reaper’s voice brings, if not for the excruciating pain.  
  
He feels himself being lifted by the tentacles forming around, surrounded and carried gently. Reaper handles him with surprising, utmost care, like glass about to break, watchful not to jostle him too much or to wrap a tentacle around his middle by accident. It’s almost like he cares. He just might - or Jack is just really good with delirious wishful thinking.  
  
He whimpers, struggling weakly to curl down on himself - he's desperate for anything, anything that would bring him any relief at all. A tendril slides down his cheek in a soothing stroke. Reaper shushes him while manhandling his body like a rag doll - Jack pays little attention to the surroundings and barely knows he's being gently lowered into the well.  
  
The darkness forming Reaper's shapeless body dissipates into thick viscous fluid and spreads, baring the core - an inner ruby light shines from under where tentacles are rooted in a messy bundle, and it's blissfully warm.  
  
Except Jack can't appreciate it right now. The pain is too much, he's shaking all over, whining weakly at every twitch of the cramping muscles. He's about to be sick again, and the heaves constricting his throat also hurt, the slightest touches against his stomach burn like a red-hot branding iron, everything hurts--  
  
"It's admirable. It must have been so hard in this state, but you came back to me..." Reaper muses matter-of-factly. He sounds appreciative, almost sympathetic as the tentacles nestle Jack between themselves on his back, knees bent and his posture fixed by heavy loops of black fluid holding him down.  
  
Jack can't follow any of his words, he just wants all of this to stop. He needs help, Reaper said he could help before, but even if he lied it's still better than dying alone.  
  
One of the thinner, finer tendrils hovers over his thorn bloody coat, about to press down on the wound, and before Jack can think about it he tries to get away with a panicked whine.  
  
"Shhh... I promised I could fix you, Jackie. And I will. There's no need to be afraid."  
  
There is some really twisted irony in Reaper, the absolute nightmare material, saying that, but Jack isn't afraid of him at all. He struggles because he can't help it, the wound is already the worst thing he's had to endure ever, Jack just doesn't want to be touched there - or anywhere near his stomach, or even being moved at all. It's an out-of-control, subconscious desire to shield the sore spot from further harm. Jack knows Reaper needs to see, he just... _can't_ , can't let him touch it.  
  
Reaper seems to understand.  
  
So instead of further mollycoddling, Jack is pinned down with necessary cruelty, and as the tendrils strip down his coat and tear apart his soaked up shirt a few others force themselves down onto the wound, feeling around it, pressing on the bruised skin around and poking the edges.  
  
“You look so good in pleasure or pain,” Reaper hisses faintly somewhere above his head. “But you know what would look even better on you? _Both_.”  
  
And then one of them presses down on the wound opening a bit more and slips in.  
  
Jack howls on top of his lungs, trashing with all the force he has left. The sounds he makes are inhuman, he screams so much his throat is raw and his whole body tenses like a taught spring, but Reaper doesn’t let go - he holds Jack down like a puppet as the tendril pushes and pushes and pushes down, and there’s nothing Jack can do to stop the tremendous force Reaper possesses. The tendril crooks and wiggles inside the wound in places where nothing foreign was meant to go, searching for something, and Jack is helpless against it.  
  
He’s begging but can’t hear his own voice, but there’s lots of incoherent “please” and “stop” in there, finally breaking into body-wracking ugly sobs.  
  
Everything goes black for a short blessed second.  
  
When he comes back, the pain is gone - just like _that_.  
  
Jack forcefully gasps through the tears, his vision slowly regaining focus. He’s still laid down, same place, same position, but not held as tightly anymore - Reaper’s tentacles are curled around in lazy circles, thick and heavy. Coughing, Jack brings his shaking hand to his face to wipe the tears, blood and drool - he’s an absolute mess, and he’s still crying, but he’s not in pain anymore.  
  
He’s not… _He’s not - in pain anymore._  
  
This one takes a moment to sink in.  
  
There’s something dangling right in front of his face. A tendril, holding something Jack recognises with a slight flinch. A bullet. A deformed, blood-covered bullet.  
  
Led by some misplaced instinct, Jack parts his lips slightly - the tendril readily pulls closer, letting Jack give a metal surface a short lick. His tongue sweeps over the tip of the tendril.

 It tastes like nothing, nothing with a hint of blood and charcoal. The bullet’s still warm. From being… inside him, Jack slowly realises.

“I apologise. I overestimated your pain tolerance.” Jack’s head jerks slightly to turn in the direction of the sound before he realises it’s only Reaper and falls limp again. Reaper chuckles. The bastard probably finds it funny. “Can’t say I regret the decision, though. Was a good show.”  
  
Jack is too slow with the realisation, which is probably understandable considering the whole ‘shot in the stomach’ thing, but he certainly doesn’t feel bloody amused.  
  
“You could fucking… take the pain away? From the start?”  
  
“I could,” Reaper agrees, easily. “But where’s the fun in that?”  
  
Unbelievable.  
  
It’s so absurd that Jack can’t help it - he throws his head back and laughs so hard that it sounds hysterical even to his own ears until he’s sobbing again. Reaper watches him through his far too many eyes but doesn’t intervene.  
  
The first thing Jack does when he’s finished is to look down at himself only to immediately go from dazed to fully stunned. The sight is… mesmerising in its own gruesome sense.  
  
The wound is still there, messier than before, and the tendril that was in there before keeps sliding in and out in a fluid motion, at a leisure pace.  
  
Jack watches it dip in and retreat only to do it again.  
  
It doesn’t make any sense. This should be fatal, even for a supersoldier, Jack should have kicked the goddamn bucket by now - or at least feel like he’s about to do it. He shouldn’t have survived the shock and blood loss. Instead, he’s dizzy and overall strange, but the smooth movement feels… almost nice. Certainly nicer than dying. What a fucking mess.  
  
There’s an ever so slight twink of pain that has Jack’s breathing anxiously quickening, but the hint is gone as soon as its; he can still feel the movement, though - it’s faint but so foreign it makes his skin crawl… but there’s something else to it.  
  
“I can control your vitals when we’re so close. Pain, too. I could release the hold on it anytime I wanted,” it sounds much more like a promise than a warning, and it makes Jack shudder in more ways than one.  
  
God, he is sick. He’s almost died from that! He wanted to die because of it!  
  
Jack licks his lips, warily attempting to bring his hand closer to the wound before asking the most logical question he can come up with right now:  
  
“I… Is this gonna kill me?”  
  
That gets him another laugh from Reaper - this one verges on _fond_. It’s the sort of tone one takes when an adored, but simple-minded lover says something silly. Like it’s all a shared joke between the two of them.  
  
“I’ve already told you… why would I kill my lovely soldier?”


End file.
